A Level Philosophy

Critically evaluate St Augustine’s theodicy.

/ vardycharlotte / 8 Comments

St Augustine is often blamed for bringing the problems of evil and suffering to the forefront in Christianity.  Certainly, responding to the problems was a major theme in his writings – as well they might be given his own experiences of persecution.  Yet in fact the tension between the Christian concept of God and the existence of evil and suffering in the world He created was apparent well before St Augustine was born.  The Nicene Creed (325AD) affirmed the omnipotence of “the Father Almighty” and the full divinity of Jesus Christ.  The doctrine of the Trinity, developed in response to Christological controversies such as Arianism, made the logical problems of Evil & suffering inescapable for Christians. St Augustine is best understood as the first very substantial, systematic attempt to resolve these problems on behalf of the orthodox Church.   Of course, the logical problem of evil was well-known to Greek Philosophy.  Epicurus wrote “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.  Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”  Later, David Hume claimed that Christian belief rests upon an “inconsistent triad” of beliefs and JL Mackie went further, claiming that the co-beliefs God exists and is omnipotent and omniscient, God exists and is omnibenevolent and Evil exists are “positively irrational.”  St Augustine attempted to defend God in several different ways.  In the 1990s American Philosopher Robert Adams listed four separate ways to approach theodicy and it is fair to say that Augustine tried all of them.  Given the constraints of time, this critical evaluation will focus on the three best-known of Augustine’s approaches, namely his definition of evil as “privatio boni”, his free-will defence and his doctrine of original sin.  In relation to these, it seems that St Augustine’s theodicy was rationally successful (at least when taken as a whole) it ultimately yielded a pastorally unsatisfying God.

St Augustine sought an answer to the problems of evil and suffering for a long time.  Unconvinced by the efforts of Christian leaders he engaged with Manichaeism and then the writings of the Platonists before eventually returning to Christianity.  It is fitting, therefore, that St Augustine’s most important theodicy is rooted in Greek Philosophy, which defined goodness in terms of actuality and fulfilment of purpose and evil in terms of potentiality and falling short of purpose. For St Augustine, evil is privatio boni and has no existence in itself.  Evil is parasitical and can only affect things that in themselves are good.  The extent to which something fulfils its nature and God’s purpose is good and the extent to which it falls short and retains potential it is evil.  All created things move, change and are contingent on other things therefore all are affected by evil to some extent.  God is the only wholly good being, unaffected by evil because, being outside time and space, fully actual and necessary, God cannot fall short and has no potential.  In this world-view, the problem of evil shifts from being about why God created evil things to why God created anything when its existence would necessarily entail being affected by evil to some extent.  This, Augustine answers by arguing that God cannot be held responsible for creating something which has no existence in itself and by arguing that the goodness in creation greatly outweighs the evil within it.  Of course, the first point is semantics and the second is a subjective judgement.  For Christians affected by horrendous evils – whether natural or moral – neither explanation is likely to be pastorally satisfying.  People do not pray to a wholly simple, necessary being… and it is difficult to square the Bible with such a being either.  Put bluntly, the parent of a terminally ill child is not going to be comforted by St Augustine’s “privatio boni” theodicy, however philosophically brilliant it might be.  This shows that St Augustine’s theodicy, although rationally successful, yielded a pastorally unsatisfying God.

St Augustine’s Free Will Defence is probably the best known of his theodicies.  The work of Alvin Plantinga has re-awakened scholarly interest in it in recent decades.  Free-will is intuitively appealing and fits beautifully with the Biblical narrative, which seeks to blame human beings for the horrors visited on them by the creation God supposedly controls and to use this as a reason to worship Him.  Nevertheless, this theodicy remains philosophically unconvincing. As JL Mackie pointed out in his famous essay “Evil and Omnipotence”, the God of the Free Will defence is limited and far from being the omnipotent being that the Creeds claim He must be.  It seems that God either CANNOT or WILL NOT create a world in which significantly free beings always choose to do right and is subservient to the laws of logic. St. Augustine (and later Plantinga) assumes incompatibilism without arguing for it.   If as St Luke and St Matthew affirm “anything is possible with God”, why can’t he create free beings AND determine (or at least limit) the outcomes?  Christian Philosophers of Religion have tried to extricate St Augustine from this mess.  St Thomas Aquinas and later Descartes both tried to argue that God is limited by logic only within this-world and that (for all we know) our omnipotent God could have created a different world in which free beings are compatible with determined outcomes.  We can only infer from the existence of this world that it must at least be part of what Richard Swinburne called the best-possible-world type – because an omnipotent God would only create such – and be satisfied on this basis that the best possible world must contain evil & suffering, that it must be better than it would be without it…  This line of argument is philosophically inadequate because it is circular.  This world suggests that God cannot be omnipotent but because God is omnipotent we must accept that this world is the best possible.  Not very convincing, at least when the Free-Will Defence is taken in isolation. 

In addition, St Augustine extended His free-will defence argument to a broader critique of Human Nature which sought to show that human beings deserve whatever natural – or moral – punishment they receive in this world.  For Augustine, the story of the Fall in Genesis 2-3 suggests that human beings fell from grace not individually but collectively and that we all inherit sin from Adam because we were all “seminally present” in him when He betrayed God in Eden.  St Augustine did not invent the idea of original sin, but he used it as a major part of his theodicy and as his main way of explaining apparently innocent suffering such as infant mortality.  For St Augustine there is no such thing as innocent suffering.  God is just and justly punishes the guilty – including infants who bear the stain of original sin.  Christ’s atoning sacrifice and the sacrament of baptism offers evidence that God is good and offers those who believe a chance to be redeemed and saved to eternal life.  For St. Augustine, God’s justice and God’s mercy is amply defended through his Doctrine of Original Sin.  Nevertheless, St Augustine’s approach is pastorally unsatisfying.  Why would a good God punish an unbaptised baby with all the horrors of cancer or starvation to satisfy His vengeance for the sin of Adam… in eating an apple?  Can St Augustine – who generally approached Biblical interpretation with such humility – really have taken the ancient and troubling story of the fall so very literally?  It is not surprising that atheists find this argument distasteful and even ridiculous.  Muslims and Jews reject Augustine’s approach and uphold the innocence of infants, despite Augustine’s claims to have seen evidence of their corruption in twins fighting over their mother’s milk.  Again St Augustine’s theodicy, although arguably rationally successful as a whole, yields a pastorally unsatisfying God.

Clearly, St Augustine’s theodicies are more convincing when taken together than when examined in isolation.  The philosophical strength of seeing evil as privatio boni does something to offset the shortcomings of the free-will defence and the pastoral strength of free-will tempers the doctrine of original sin, yet the fact that St Augustine had to have so many attempts at defending God against charges of creating or allowing evil suggests that he himself remained unconvinced.  In the Enchiridion, written towards the end of St Augustine’s life c.420AD, Augustine confronted the reality of the situation, writing “Nothing, therefore, happens unless the Omnipotent wills it to happen. He either allows it to happen or he actually causes it to happen.”  It seems that St Augustine was not unaware of the shortcomings of his own theodicies and he had to fall back on faith and prayer in the end.

In conclusion, although St Augustine’s theodicy was rationally successful (at least when taken as a whole) it ultimately yielded a pastorally unsatisfying God.  Christians have struggled with this ever since.  There is no way to acquit God of all charges when it comes to having created or at least allowed evil and suffering, and the only possible response is to pray for understanding and continued faith.  This is the message at the heart of the book of Job.  As Holocaust-survivor Elie Weisel remarked,

“I was there when they put God on trial… at the end they used the word “chayev” rather than guilty.  It means “he owes us something”.  Then we went to pray.”

The Via Negativa is the best way to approach religious language. Discuss [40]

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Whether this claim is valid or not very much depends on the concept of God in question.  If God is inside time, everlasting but personal – as the God of Abraham and Isaac in the Bible seems to be – then using religious language in a positive and univocal way seems reasonable.  On the other hand, if God is eternal outside time – as the God of the Philosophers, the Prime Mover, “that than which nothing greater can be conceived of” seems to be – then using words coined to describe things within time seems more problematic.  Maimonides, the most famous proponent of the Via Negativa, was heavily influenced by the Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle and so saw God as eternal outside time.  Given this, his claim in the “Guide for the Perplexed” that… “To give a full explanation of the mystic passages of the Bible is contrary to the law and to reason… God cannot be compared to anything…” and his proposal that the most that can be said about God is what God is not i.e. God is not limited, evil, something physical etc… seems persuasive.  Nevertheless, Maimonides’ Via Negativa, his apophatic way of approaching God leaves religion in a difficult position.  Religions make positive claims about God; the Holy Books and doctrines of all religions are full of them!  Maimonides’ approach makes religion die the death of a thousand qualifications.  Believers need to have something positive to fix their faith on, not silence, the empty space left by negations and a lot of small print saying that Holy Texts can’t be understood to mean what they say.  The Via Negativa – for all its logical appeal and for all its possibilities in terms of framing that language of spirituality and personal faith – is far from being the best approach to religious language. 

In a sense, Christianity is defined by the Nicene Creed:

“We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen. 

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God…”

Approaching the Creed from the Via Negativa is problematic.  Admittedly, it doesn’t start too badly.  One God.  Oneness is a quality being positively ascribed to God.  Is oneness a concept bound by time and space?  Arguably.  Maimonides might replace this line with “We believe in a God who is not many…” but the sense is very much the same.  Nevertheless, things quickly go downhill.  We believe in God “the Father”… clearly “Father” is a word rooted in time and space.  Maimonides – along with Christian proponents of the Via Negativa such as Tertullian, St Cyril of Jerusalem and Pseudo-Dionysus – might have to admit that the word has no positive meaning when applied to God and worse, that it is likely to be positively misleading about His nature.  While St Cyril’s point that believers should “candidly confess that we have not exact knowledge concerning Him…” (Catechetical Homilies), this approach is unlikely to have found favour at the Council of Nicaea or in Churches today.  The central Christian mission would be a lot more difficult if believers openly confessed that they have little idea what it is they believe in!  As Maimonides wrote “However great the exertion of our mind may be to comprehend the Divine Being or any of the ideals, we find a screen and partition between God and us.” (Guide for the Perplexed)  This doesn’t offer people much incentive to be baptized, attend Church or read the Gospel; it pushes people towards deism or non-denominational “spirituality”.  In this way, the Via Negativa is not the best approach to religious language as it makes religion dysfunctional.  

Further, there is a better alternative to the Via Negativa in the form of Aquinas’ doctrine of Analogy.  Aquinas read Maimonides and was persuaded both by his concept of God and by his skepticism concerning the positive meaning of terms applied to God.  He strongly disagreed with the univocalism employed by scholars like St Anselm and absolutely rejected the idea that people can know and describe the nature of God sufficiently to analyze it and find necessary existence within it a priori, as proponents of the ontological arguments do.  In Summa Theologica 1:2:2 Aquinas wrote “because we do not know the essence of God, the proposition “God exists” is not self-evident to us; but needs to be demonstrated by things that are known to us…”  In Summa Theologica 1:2:3 he responded to the question “Is God a body” by making quite clear that the meaning of words applied to God can only be understood in a strictly limited and analogical sense.   Aquinas argues that words applied to God have meaning as analogies of being (1) and sometimes discusses two separate senses in which meaning should be understood; analogies of attribution (2) and analogies of proportion (3).

  1. Most importantly, God’s being is not the same as our being – he is Wholly Simple and timeless and as such has no potential.  The meaning of words applied to God have to be consistent with the mysterious, timeless nature that we know that he must have as a result of reasoning from movement, causation and contingency.  For Aquinas, when believers say that God is good they cannot understand that God is morally good, because that implies freedom and choice which are concepts which only make sense in time.  God is timeless and eternal, so His goodness can only be timeless and eternal – goodness in the sense of perfection and the fulfilment of nature only.  Hence, there is a positive sense in which attributes positively ascribed to God can have meaning; that in which they are compatible with His being or nature.
  2. In addition, the meaning of terms applied to God and to earthly things has an overlap in the way that I might say that I am healthy and my yoghurt is healthy.  Healthy is a property primarily of living creatures like me and only secondarily of foods or activities which contribute to my health.  According to John Milbank, Aquinas suggests that the primary sense of attributes such as “good” relate to God and the meaning of the word in an earthly sense is only secondary.  There IS a positive connection between the meaning of attributes applied to God and earthly things; the connection is not large but it is rationally defined.
  3. In addition, God’s unchangingly perfect and actual nature dictates that he must be 100% everything that can be ascribed to Him.  God cannot fall short, because to do so implies potential which is not compatible with God’s timeless nature.  Given this, God is the scale against which we make judgements about things in this world.  If I say “Jamie Vardy is a great footballer” I have to have an idea of what greatness means.  Vardy can only fulfil a proportion of what that idea is, because he is only one man in one time playing for one team – and he is not a rugby player, rower, artist or opera singer, all of which might be described as reflecting greatness in a different way.  The meaning of attributes ascribed to earthly things has a proportional relationship with the meaning of divine attributes.  Again, the shared meaning (analogy) is not a large one, but it can be rationally described.

Aquinas’ analogical approach to religious language is a much better approach to religious language than the Via Negativa because it enables believers to use and defend the meaning of positive claims about God, while not supporting naïve univocalism or a philosophically unsatisfying and ultimately limited concept of God.  Aquinas’ model of God is deeply appealing in that it is supported by real experience, but it also retains the “otherness” and unlimited idea of God that is so important to believers.  Aquinas’ theory of religious language completes his model of God because it shows how believers are worshipping in an ultimately meaningful way, even though God is beyond ordinary understanding.  The Via Negativa is not the best approach to religious language because Analogy is a much better approach. 

Scholars who employ cataphatic theology and approach religious language through the Via Positiva reject the Via Negativa on the grounds that it ignores the important connection between God – the creator – and the world – the creation.  In the same way that Philosophers reason from movement, causation, contingency, grades of perfection in things, order and purpose to the existence of a necessary being who explains these qualities we experience in the universe, people should be able to apply words based on qualities we experience in the universe to the God who created them.  Anselm and John Duns Scotus both defended the univocal use of religious language on these grounds, arguing that words refer to concepts which depend on God to define them through His creation.  Anselm’s ontological argument depends on this argument, because it analyses the definition of God and finds necessary existence within it.  This could not work if the word “greater” meant anything different when applied to God than it does when applied to things in this world.  The problem with the univocal approach to religious language is that the type of connection between creator and creation does not support a literal approach to the meaning of language.  When a person creates something, their creation does not have to be like them.  The potter is not made of clay and a skilled potter is capable of making a bad pot. We have no reason to believe that words apply to God in exactly or even much the same way as they apply to things in this world.  Aquinas strict limitations on the sense in which meaning should be understood when words are applied to God seems much more realistic in relation to a God whose relationship with the world is understood to be the creator, Prime Mover, uncaused cause, necessary being, supreme perfection and intelligent designer.   Because of this, the Via Negativa is a better way to approach religious language than the Via Positiva, but it is still less good than Analogy.

Certainly, the Via Negativa has its uses, but these are more apparent when it comes to Philosophy or the practice of personal spirituality than they are in the practice of religion.  The word “religion” refers to what binds us as people together; the ties that bind need to be clearly defined and understood if they are to function and endure. In terms of Philosophy, approaching the nature of God through negation is an important check in naïve literalism.  As Maimonides wrote “it is of great advantage that man should know his station, and not imagine that the whole universe exists only for him.”  For philosophers, it is all too easy to move from saying that there are absolute limits to human knowledge to ignoring what lies beyond those limits to denying that there is anything beyond those limits to denying that there are limits.  As philosophers and as individuals, reflecting on the nature of God as “wholly other” forces us to confront the falsity of the prevalent assumption that “man is the measure of all things” and deepen their spiritual understanding, which includes confronting limitation and embracing humility.  As Tertullian said “our very incapacity of fully grasping Him affords us the idea of what He really is…”  and as St Cyril said “in what concerns God to confess our ignorance is the best knowledge…”  Certainly, the Via Negativa is a useful brake on naive literalism and a spiritual tool for individuals, but it cannot be described as the best approach to religious language in general.

In conclusion, the Via Negativa is far from being the best approach to religious language, although it is still useful in some ways. The best approach seems to be Aquinas’ doctrine of Analogy, which treads the line between acknowledging the otherness of God and retaining the ability to say some meaningful things about God successfully.  Ian Ramsey’s suggestion that words being used in an analogical sense should be signposted or qualified in some way seems a sensible way of improving Aquinas’ analogy further, avoiding the probability that believers could miss the careful sense in which words are being applied to God and confuse religious language with ordinary language.  Thomist scholars such as Gerry Hughes SJ use the word “timelessly” as such a qualifier, showing that words such as “good” should not be taken to mean more than can be defended in relation to the being and attributes of God and as proportional to His qualities.

 

“Boethius proved that God’s omniscience is compatible with human free will.” Discuss (40)

/ vardycharlotte

Boethius’ discussion of Divine omniscience can be found in his Consolations of Philosophy, Book 5.  Facing his own death, Boethius reflects on the human condition and imagines a dialogue with Lady Philosophy, who points out the vast web of Aristotelian causation in which our lives are caught. In Part I Boethius asks…

“in this series of linked causes is there any freedom left to our will, or does the chain of fate bind also the very motions of our souls?’

pointing to a problem that has always dogged Classical Theism.  If God is Omnipotent, and if Omnipotence entails omniscience, then it is difficult to maintain any meaningful degree of human freedom.  Without freedom there seems to be no convincing way of defending God against charges of creating or at least allowing gratuitous suffering.  A God who is omniscient cannot also be benevolent.  Boethius proceeds to explore this problem and then attempts to resolve it by clarifying the very nature of God and therefore the nature of His foreknowledge, yet his resolution fails to show how Omniscience and human freedom are compatible in the end.

In Book 5 part III, Boethius sets out the paradox of omnipotence in some detail.  Drawing on Platonic philosophy, and the eternal model of God suggested to Christian Neoplatonists by the Timaeus, Boethius saw God’s eternal existence and nature as a necessary conclusion of rational reflection on a contingent world.  However, accepting God’s eternity comes with problems.  Boethius pointed out…

“if from eternity He foreknows not only what men will do, but also their designs and purposes, there can be no freedom of the will”

and explained how neither the suggestion that God’s knowledge of them makes future events necessary nor the suggestion that God’s knowledge is contingent on events in time are satisfactory.  J.M.E. McTaggart (1866–1925) differentiated between a God whose knowledge of events is from a perspective in time (A series eternity) and a God whose knowledge of events is from a perspective outside time whereby all events are simultaneous in the mind of God (B series eternity).  Boethius argued that putting God’s perspective in time, giving him A series eternity, makes God’s knowledge depend on time and the things that happen within it.  If I watch a bus arriving at its stop, my knowledge of it happening depends on the bus doing what it is doing and on time passing to facilitate what it is doing.  Clearly, in this scenario my knowledge of the bus does not determine the bus in doing what it does – I could not reasonably be held responsible for the bus being early, late or punctual – and yet it is also true that my knowledge of the future is limited because I cannot know what has not yet happened.  This sort of A series eternity fails to support the supreme knowledge and power that Classical Theists impute to God.  However there are also problems with B series eternity, as Boethius pointed out.  If God has a timeless perspective and knows all things and events simply and singly, then it seems to follow that future events happen necessarily because they are known by God before they happen and because they cannot not happen.  Consequently,

“what an upset of human affairs manifestly ensues! Vainly are rewards and punishments proposed for the good and bad, since no free and voluntary motion of the will has deserved either one or the other… And therefore neither virtue nor vice is anything, but rather good and ill desert are confounded together… Again, no ground is left for hope or prayer, since how can we hope for blessings, or pray for mercy, when every object of desire depends upon the links of an unalterable chain of causation?”

Boethius sets out how if God knows things that might not come to pass, then His knowledge is limited and if God’s knowledge depends on how things are in time, His power is limited.  He accepts that on the issue of omniscience rests the plausibility of Religion – for without genuine human freedom there can be no morality, no hope for meaningful salvation and no real communication with the Divine. In Part IV Boethius addresses this fundamental problem by attempting to show that God’s foreknowledge of events is not necessary by pointing out that God’s knowledge is not like human knowledge, and suggesting that freedom and foreknowledge could be compatible for God in a way that they do not seem to be to us. God’s knowledge, argues Boethius, is not due to physical senses, nor to imagination, nor to thought, but is instead the knowledge of pure intelligence which understands the very underpinnings of reality

“by surveying all things, so to speak, under the aspect of pure form by a single flash of intuition.” 

For Boethius,

“eternity is the possession of endless life whole and perfect at a single moment… since God abides for ever in an eternal present, His knowledge, also transcending all movement of time, dwells in the simplicity of its own changeless present, and, embracing the whole infinite sweep of the past and of the future, contemplates all that falls within its simple cognition as if it were now taking place. “ (Book 5, Part VI)

This is persuasive; St Augustine discussed something similar in The Confessions (354–430) and St. Thomas Aquinas extended and developed a very similar position in the Summa Theologica (1264).   However, the price of resolving the conflict between foreknowledge and free-will seems to push God far into timeless abstraction and seeming unknowability.  Arguably, this approach preserves the technical plausibility of Religion by sacrificing the practical plausibility of Religion and so achieves, at most, a pyrrhic victory.  Surely, it is no more meaningful to pray to “pure intelligence” – whose knowledge of individual circumstances is limited to part of a single flash of intuition unsullied by sight, imagination or thought – than it is to pray to a being who has determined the prayer, its cause and its outcome by His very existence?  Further, the meaning of the divine attributes would be severely restricted by pushing God outside the spatio-temporal framework that describes ordinary human language.  What can the words “benevolence” or “power” really mean in a timeless sense?  A timeless God cannot have choice – because choice implies a time before and after a choice is made and the possibility of things being other than they are.  A timeless God cannot act – because action implies a time before and after at the very least.  As Sir Anthony Kenny pointed out that the concept of a timeless God seems “radically incoherent.”  He wrote…

“my typing of this paper is simultaneous with the whole of eternity. Again, on this view, the great fire of Rome is simultaneous with the whole of eternity. Therefore, while I type these very words, Nero fiddles heartlessly on.” (Kenny, The God of the Philosophers (Oxford, Clarendon Press) 1979, 38–9)

The idea that a timeless God can do or be anything that is comprehensible through normal concepts and words is ridiculous.  There is no shared analogical meaning between words applied to God and the world, whatever Aquinas tried to argue.

Boethius was aware of this problem in positing a completely timeless God and tried to reconcile his claim that God exists in a timeless eternity with God having the ability to know events as they happen and a degree of freedom or openness in the future.  In Part VI he argued that while God sees events an eternal present, God’s knowledge cannot be understood to cause them to happen.  God can know an event or action that is genuinely free because his knowledge is of an eternal present rather than a future as we would understand it…  Taking the bus analogy again, God witnesses its journey like a single stack of still photographs.  Every step of the journey is known as if in the present – God’s knowledge is not constrained by time because he sees everything now, but God’s knowledge still depends on the way things are rather than making them the way that they are and removing all freedom. God’s knowledge is neither conditional (as ours usually is) nor simply necessary (as would be the case with a completely timeless God who would be unaware of any present).  God’s knowledge is unlike any form of human knowledge in that it is conditionally necessary.  The very categories “contingent” and “simply necessary” suggest temporal and logical frameworks that do not apply to God who creates these frameworks and exists outside them.  While this is persuasive, God’s conditionally necessary knowledge of events seems little more religiously satisfying than God’s timeless knowledge of events.  God’s experience of an eternal present is almost as different from human experience as a genuinely timeless experience would be.  The preservation of free will, moral responsibility and divine benevolence is by no means clear either.  If God knows future events now and they cannot be other than how they are, then whether God knows them as if in an eternal present or otherwise, it is difficult to see how anything can really change by human agency.

EL Mascall tried to suggest that quantum science could provide a model for understanding how God’s actions could both be timeless and have an appearance of being in time if each action could be conceived to have a timeless and a temporal pole which are interrelated, this does not advance the discussion by much.  Mascall is just restating the assertion that things would look different from God’s point of view in different language.  He doesn’t seem to do more explain how God can both know the future in a way that God ensures that nothing but what God knows can happen and not be responsible for what happens.  Other contemporary writers, such as Eleonore Stump, Norman Kretzmann, and Brian Leftow, have also tried to modify the timeless model of God by insisting that God’s timeless eternity has some of the features of temporal duration.  The project that Boethius started retains its interest because arguably, the plausibility of religion depends on its success.  However, the project has yet to yield conclusive results.

In addition, Protestant scholars Nelson Pike and Richard Swinburne have developed related arguments.  For Nelson Pike the idea that God’s knowledge can be that of pure intelligence taking in the whole of reality in a single flash of intuition is incompatible with the God revealed through the Bible.  The God of the Bible – of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to borrow Pascal’s phrase – is active and responsive and seemingly possessed of the ability to see, hear, imagine, think and even feel.  In his essay “Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action” (1965) Pike points out that whatever metaphorical interpretations are put on Biblical accounts of God wrestling Jacob or speaking with Moses or acknowledging Jesus at His Baptism, God’s knowledge is inescapably tensed.  If this is true, then it is difficult to see how Boethius model of a God experiencing an eternal present could be acceptable to people of mainstream Christian faith. A timeless model of God – even the modified timeless model proposed by Boethius – conflicts with the Biblical account of His creative action and nature.  Swinburne agreed, pointing out that…

“The God of the Hebrew Bible… is pictured as being in continual interaction with humans – humans sin, then God is angry, then humans repent, then God forgives them…” (The Coherence of Theism 2nd ed. 2016 p233)

Without the idea of God responding to human sin and human repentance, there is no obvious way to preserve what is meaningful about Christianity.  Swinburne adds that…

“The Hebrew Bible shows no knowledge of the doctrine of divine timelessness… God is represented as saying “I am the Alpha and the Omega…”  … but it seems to me to be reading far too much into such phrases to interpret them as implying the doctrine of divine timelessness.”  (Ibid. p230)

Although the ideas of God’s timelessness or eternity are philosophically useful in that they provide possible means of defending God against responsibility for suffering – including inflicting endless fiery punishment arbitrarily – the ideas find no support in Scripture and conflict with essential Christian beliefs and teachings.

There seems to be a contradiction between the Philosophical model of God suggested by Boethius, developed by Aquinas and enshrined in Catholic doctrine and the everlasting God described by the Bible and proposed by Theistic Personalists, many of whom are Protestant.  Further, neither model of God really avoids the problem of Omniscience outlined by Boethius in Book 5 of The Consolations of Philosophy.  The God of Theistic Personalists must either be limited in knowledge or power (and so is Philosophically unsatisfying) and the Timeless God is limited in terms of not being able to witness, experience, respond or act in any recognizable sense (and so is religiously unsatisfying.)  Boethius failed to prove that God’s omniscience is compatible with human free will, but he succeeded in outlining the inescapability of the problem and the importance of addressing and ultimately resolving it.  While Nelson Pike was careful to open his 1965 essay Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action by disassociating himself from the implications of his contribution to the project Boethius started, it is difficult to ignore these implications for long.  Either God is limited (i.e. not Omnipotent, Omniscient or Benevolent) or human beings are determined… but in any case Classical Theism is incoherent.

 

 

Critically evaluate the Ontological Argument. (40)

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The Ontological Argument was first so-called by Immanuel Kant, who sought to destroy the attempt to establish God’s existence a priori that had been made by Leibniz, Descartes and first by St Anselm.  In basic terms the Ontological Argument suggests that since

  • P1. God is supremely perfect

and

  • P2. Existence in reality is better than existence only in the mind
  • C.   God therefore must exist.

The argument contends that real existence is a necessary part of the concept of God and thus that attempts to deny God’s existence are foolish.  Anselm quoted Psalm 14:1 and concluded that atheists assert a straightforward contradiction, in effect saying “God (who by definition must exist) does not exist”.   While the argument seems like “a charming joke” (as Schopenhauer put it), as even the Bertrand Russell remarked, it is much more difficult to show how it fails.  Nevertheless, the Ontological Argument does fail for the reasons set out by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason.

Kant aimed his critique at Descartes’ version of the Ontological Argument, although his points do relate to other versions as well.  Descartes developed his argument in several places, but the most well known version is in his Fifth Meditation, where he reflected that the existence of a supremely-perfect being was as undeniable and necessary as three sides are to a triangle or valleys are to hills.  Like Anselm, Descartes suggests that existence is part of the definition of God as supremely perfect (as Anselm put it “that than which nothing greater can be conceived of”).  Kant rejected this absolutely.  For Kant all knowledge claims are either synthetic or analytic.  Synthetic claims refer to experience and so add to our knowledge of the world, but they always contain the possibility of being true or false.  Analytic claims are based on logic, reason. The relationships between concepts – if valid they provide certainty, proof, but they are tautologous and do not add to our stock of knowledge, they just clarify our understanding and so provide insight.  Kant argued that the Ontological Argument analyses the concept of God and claims to find existence within it. Although it is analytic, it makes an existential claim.  Kant argues that this is impossible – all existential claims must be synthetic – and this is highly persuasive.  Analytic statements cannot expand our knowledge of what does or does not exist in the real world. As Gaunilo remarked in response to Anselm in his essay “on behalf of the fool,” it is absurd to try to define something into existence.  If somebody suggested that a perfect island exists just because by definition it has to, nobody would book tickets to go there on holiday!  Kant’s division of knowledge into synthetic and analytic is still widely accepted, as is his argument that all existential claims must be synthetic, despite WV Quine’s criticism of Kant’s understanding of knowledge.  Quine claimed that the division of all knowledge into synthetic and analytic was a “dogma of empiricism” and only true within Kant’s own limited worldview.

Kant went on to show how the Ontological Argument makes the assumption that existence is a perfection.  Both Anselm and Descartes argue that it is better, more perfect, to exist in reality (in re) than just in the mind (in intellectu) but, as Kant points out, there is no difference between the concept of a real $100 and an imaginary $100 – the concept remains the same whether the money is in my pocket or in my head.  Existence does not add a single penny to the concept, it just tells me where (and if) the concept has been actualised. Related to this is Kant’s famous observation that existence is not a predicate and that the Ontological Argument rests on poor grammar.  A predicate is a word that describes an object.  Although superficially it seems that existence adds to our knowledge of an object, in practice it is the basis on which any claims to knowledge about an object make sense.  Take a job interview.  If there are two candidates, equally well qualified, but it later emerges that only one exists it is not a case of saying that the real candidate is better than the fictitious one but it is a case of saying that the contest was a joke.  As Bertrand Russell remarked, if I ask you “has the present King of France got blonde hair and blue eyes” I smuggle the assumption that there IS a present King of France into my question.  Actually, there is no present King of France so my question is meaningless and can’t be answered either correctly or incorrectly.  This is a difficult point to deny and seems to conclusively destroy the Ontological Argument’s claim to proving God’s existence.  Although there is an intuitive human appeal to the idea that a (any?) real chocolate cake, island – or God – is better than one that only exists in the mind, in practice that cannot be sufficient basis for a claim that God exists.

Kant’s criticisms of the Ontological Argument show that it fails in its object of proving God’s existence. Of course that does not mean that God does not exist.  Just because the Ontological – or any – argument for the existence of God is found to be unsound has no effect on the existence or non-existence of God, although it does take away one support for Propositional faith.  Is it fair to say that as a failed argument the Ontological Argument really is a “charming joke” then?  Absolutely not.  Anselm originally titled the Proslogion “Fides quaerens intellectum”; in the process of faith seeking understanding the Ontological Argument succeeds in clarifying our understanding of the nature and limits of human knowledge.  As such, the argument continues to have great significance.  Further, as both Karl Barth and Iris Murdoch suggested, the argument invites believers to reconsider what they mean by existence, particularly when it comes to God.  Do believers really expect God to be real in the way that a perfect island might be real, or do they have a different sort of reality in mind?

Critically evaluate the Kalam Argument. (40)

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The Kalam Argument for the existence of God was put forward by Islamic mutakallimimiin in the early middle ages. Responding to the work of Aristotle, gathered and translated by the first Caliphs into the Bayt al Hikmah in Baghdad, Muslim scholars were divided between accepting Aristotle’s persuasive world-view along with his arguments and modifying Aristotle to fit in with the revealed truth that the Universe was created by Allah and so had a beginning in time. Those who accepted Aristotle’s idea of an infinite universe, albeit one sustained by a Prime Mover, were known as “Falsafa” (the Arabic transliteration of “Philosopher” and those who modified Aristotle were known as “Kalam” (which literally means word or speech of God).  The Kalam argument built on 6th century Christian writer John Philoponus’ argument that the idea of an infinite universe was self-contradictory.  Philoponus observed that “The eternity of the universe would imply an infinite number of past motions that is continually being increased. But an infinite cannot be added to…” Scholars of the Kalam school argued that

  • P1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause
  • P2: The Universe began to exist
  • IC:  The universe has a cause to its existence.
  • P3: That cause is what everybody calls God
  • C:  God exists

In this way, scholars such as Al Kindi and later Al Ghazali proposed that Aristotle’s principle of causation suggests a necessary Uncaused Causer at the beginning of time rather than just a Prime Mover sustaining an infinite universe.

The work of Al Ghazali in particular inspired American scholar William Lane Craig to develop and defend a new version of the Kalam Argument in the 1970s and 1980s as part of a battery of arguments which he employs for the purposes of Christian apologetics.  He focussed on the first part of the argument above, namely

  • P1:  Everything that begins to exist has a cause
  • P2: The Universe began to exist
  • C:  The universe has a cause to its existence.

Craig chose to leave it to Theologians to argue separately that the (uncaused) cause of the universe could indeed be said to be God. Nevertheless, Craig’s argument was subject to immediate criticism.  Scientists took issue with the proposition “everything that begins to exist has a cause”, citing quantum particles as examples of entities within the universe that are not subject to the Aristotelian principle of causation.  Atheists took issue with the conclusion “that cause is what everybody calls God”, noting that little can be known about the Uncaused Cause of the universe and there is little point of worshipping something as abstract as the Higgs Boson. This essay will conclude that while the argument fails to demonstrate God’s existence it has significant value in other ways.

The Atheist philosopher JL Mackie rejected Craig’s first statement of his Kalam argument in his “The Miracle of Theism”, which was published posthumously in 1983.  In Chapter 5 Mackie attacks the idea that the universe could have a first cause in time, suggesting that Craig had misunderstood the concept of infinity.  He doubts that there is any good reason to believe that the first proposition of the Kalam argument, that “everything that begins to exist has a cause”, is true but focusses his attention on proposition two, that the universe must have begun to exist.  Mackie showed that there are a series of steps or sub-arguments involved in proposition 2, the first relying on the impossibility of an actual infinite and the second relying on the impossibility of an infinity by successive addition.  He argued that neither of the sub-arguments could be said to be sound and therefore that proposition 2, on which Craig’s conclusion relies, cannot be upheld.  Finally, Mackie pointed to the inconsistency in an argument which starts by upholding causality and then proposes an uncaused solution; like Al Ghazali and later Bertrand Russell, he asks “why could not the universe be its own cause?” Mackie’s critique of Craig’s argument is persuasive and echoes generations of critics of the Cosmological Argument as a whole. Nevertheless, in “Professor Mackie and the Kalam Cosmological Argument“[2] Craig labelled Mackie’s criticism as “superficial”, suggesting that Mackie’s theoretical demolition of his claim that an actual infinite or an infinity by successive addition is impossible did not address the real-world difficulty of supposing the universe has no beginning.  It is one thing to theorise about Hilbert’s Hotel or Gabriel’s Trumpet, but it is a different matter to suggest that either approximates to reality.  Craig appeals to experience; how can we suppose that a series of causes and effects in time has no beginning?  Something just can’t come out of nothing!  It seems that Craig really has a point; the concept of infinity stretches the bounds of comprehension and the idea of the universe we can see and otherwise sense and that we can observe (using radio-telescopes at least) expanding, having no beginning and no end seems much less plausible than the alternative.

Nevertheless, Craig’s reluctance to make the move from claiming that the universe has a first cause in time to claiming that this cause is God is a potential weakness. Perhaps, as James Still observes, “Craig’s admirable effort to prove the finitude of the universe leaves him in the position of the runner at Marathon. While he has expended all of his energy to bring the news of the universe’s beginning to us, he has little strength left to argue convincingly for its cause.”  Or perhaps Craig’s reluctance is more strategic.  Given research into sub-atomic particles and the evidenced suggestion that on the quantum level things happen without a cause right now, let alone when the conditions of the universe were markedly different (as in the singularity), it is a logical stretch to identify the un-caused cause of the universe with God with any speed and without a great deal of justification.  Although the qualities that Craig ascribes to the cause of the universe – uncaused, necessary, timeless, space-less, eternal, unchanging, infinitely powerful – are the traditional qualities of God, arguably they became so as a result of the work of philosophers in attempting to co-opt Aristotle’s philosophy into the Philosophy of Religion.  It is difficult to see how the cause of the universe could be understood to be the father of Jesus, the author of miracles or the active recipient of prayers, even allowing for the use of metaphorical language. Yet of course Craig understands this difficulty; as a Reformed Epistemologist following Hick and Pannenberg, he leaves it to Theologians to make that case, seeing that his role as an apologist is limited to showing that a faith sourced elsewhere is potentially reasonable.  Craig’s theistic purpose in advancing and defending his argument is obvious; Craig’s version of the Kalam argument was first advanced at the end of a survey and analysis of cosmological arguments for God’s existence and is repeatedly referenced through Craig’s apologetic articles and videos.  It seems that his evasion in relation to the final step in the Islamic Kalam argument is deliberate and strategic, sidestepping the damaging criticism that would inevitably have followed on from his completing the Kalam argument as Al Ghazali did. Craig does not need to complete the argument for his purposes and to do so would be costly, so he chooses to focus on the part of the argument that is more defensible and which raises difficult questions about his opponents’ world-view.  While the criticism that Craig is a hypocrite is rightly rejected as being ad hominem,[4] it is fair to suggest that Craig’s strategic approach to the argument undermines its plausibility to some extent.

In later articles and popular presentations[5] Craig has recruited the work of scientists in support of his reasoning, pointing to the Big Bang Theory and associated evidence such as Red Shift, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics etc. as evidence for the necessity of a beginning for all time and all space.  Given the weight of scientific opinion behind the existence of the universe having a beginning it seems reasonable to conclude, as Craig does, that the universe must have a cause and that this must be outside space and time and thus, single, simple, unchanging, necessary and the origin of everything.  Yet the Philosopher of Science Adolf Grunbaum rejected Craig’s reasoning, arguing that Big Bang theory leads back to a singularity, an infinitely small and dense point of matter at t0.[6]  If time starts with the singularity, it makes no sense to speak of a cause prior to the singularity so the ultimate cause of the universe IS the singularity.  To put it another way, the singularity is the cause of the universe and, because there is no space or time prior to the singularity, the cause of the universe can only be the singularity.  Grunbaum’s reasoning seems flawless; if space and time are connected, as Einstein demonstrated, a universe expanding in space is also expanding in time and both space and time start together.  How then could there be a cause prior to or outside the universe, whether that cause is God or otherwise?  Perhaps the conclusion that the universe is, at least so far as human understanding is concerned, “a brute fact” is inescapable.

In conclusion, it seems that the Kalam argument is subject to several significant criticisms.  While its simple and elegant form seems to be valid, as JL Mackie observed it conceals chains of reasoning which might not bear scrutiny and makes universal claims about causation which cannot be fully supported.  It is not, therefore, a good argument even in terms of establishing the limited conclusion which William Lane Craig restricts it to, that the universe has an unspecified cause.  Nevertheless, it does seem that the argument has the merit of drawing attention to the inadequacy of alternative, non-theistic explanations of the universe.  It may be that we cannot establish the necessity of a cause for the universe, let alone that that cause is God in any meaningful sense, and yet the idea that the universe has no cause is difficult to accept on any level.  In the end the Kalam Argument shines a light on the bizarre state of relations between Science and Theology today… with the Scientists arguing against the principle of causation and against the implications of their own conclusion that the universe started to exist and the Theologians arguing that the scientists have been right all along, that the principle of causation must stand and that the Big Bang Theory and its implications must be accepted in full.  Perhaps at some point both will have to accept that establishing the cause of the universe is beyond the limits of human knowledge.

Footnotes

[1] Quoted in William Lane Craig “The Cosmological Argument from Plato to Leibniz” (1979) p53.

[2] Religious Studies, 1984, Vol.20, pp.367-375

[3] James T Sill “Eternity and Time in William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument” www.infidels.org

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSK3F3sjVNk

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CulBuMCLg0

[6] Vardy and Vardy “God Matters” (SCM Press, 2014) page 74

Critically evaluate the classical teleological argument (40)

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Teleological arguments move from observations of purposiveness in the universe to the conclusion that God is the best explanation for the existence of the universe as it is. The Greek word TELOS originally referred to the target in archery and Aquinas, in his fifth way to God plays on this imagery by selecting an arrow as his analogy for purposiveness in the universe.  He wrote…

“We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.”

The argument has its roots in Aristotle, who wrote of things in the universe and the universe as a whole advancing towards fulfilling a FINAL CAUSE, a telos or purpose, and suggested that there must be some mysterious force guiding this process and supporting the tendency towards fulfilment, goodness, in everything we see. It has been advanced many times and in many different variants since Aquinas, but it is characterised by arguing qua purpose and by the use of analogies to emphasise the improbability of efficient organisms and processes arising by chance. The classical teleological argument fell out of favour in the mid-19th century as Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was accepted as offering a natural explanation for the appearance of purposiveness in things.  This essay will argue that while evolution remains the best reason for rejecting teleological arguments, there are other good reasons for rejecting them as well.

In 1779 David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion was published.  It contained a complete, and eminently readable, refutation of the classical teleological as well as other arguments for the existence of God.  Hume’s character Cleanthes sets up the argument, using the analogy of a machine and its maker(s)…

“Look round the world, contemplating the whole thing and every part of it; you’ll find that it is nothing but one big machine subdivided into an infinite number of smaller ones… The intricate fitting of means to ends throughout all nature is just like (though more wonderful than) the fitting of means to ends in things that have been produced by us”[2]

He concluded…

“Since the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer by all the rules of analogy that the causes are also alike, and that the author of nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though he has much larger faculties to go with the grandeur of the work he has carried out.”[3]

In 1803 Cleanthes’ argument was famously reproduced by William Paley, who used the analogy of a watch and watchmaker, concluding that from the similarity between the watch, natural organisms and even the universe as a whole…

“the inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker”

The arguments presented by both Cleanthes and Paley are arguments from analogy and, as such, both can only be as strong as the analogies they employ.  As Hume’s character Philo observed, Cleanthes (and reasonably Paley) relies on a “very weak analogy”.  He reduces the argument to absurdity by suggesting alternative analogies – a house, legs, a ship – and concludes that

“Doesn’t the great disproportion ·between part and whole· bar all comparison and inference? From observing the growth of a hair, can we learn anything about how men come into being? Would the way a leaf blows—even if we knew this perfectly—teach us anything about how a tree grows?”[5]

As Philo points out, there is a great dissimilarity between any analogy and the universe as a whole, and this is not just one of degree as Paley suggests in Chapter II Part V of Natural Theology.  It is not reasonable, even from the perspective of the 19th Century Newtonian world-view, to suggest that

“Thought, design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other animals, is just one of the springs and forces of the universe…”

It follows that the analogies commonly employed to persuade readers by proponents of the classical teleological argument add nothing to the strength of their argument as a whole.

Apart from the analogies, the classical teleological argument can be summarised through this syllogism…

P1.  Natural organisms act towards an end

P2. Natural organisms cannot act towards an end independently

C1. There must be some intelligence causing natural organisms to act towards an end

C2. This intelligence is what everybody calls God.

Clearly, both propositions can be disputed.  There are many examples of inefficiency in nature and even where purposiveness is apparent, this can now be explained by evolution through natural selection.  Yet the most problematic step in the argument is the secondary conclusion, that the “intelligence” is what everybody calls God.  Surely God is usually seen to be whatever caused the universe to be the way that it is, however the qualities of omnipotence and omnibenevolence are usually imputed to God and there can be no doubt that the universe contains many examples of gratuitous innocent suffering.  As Tennyson wrote “nature is red in tooth and claw”[7] – Darwin himself and later John Stuart Mill remarked how implausible it is to suggest that a loving God could create a world in which animals must kill each other to survive.  To many people this world seems more like the project of a sick science-fiction project than of the God of Christianity! Is it not reasonable to suggest that this universe could be the first, “rude effort of an infant deity”[8]?  This would better account for the imperfect characteristics of the universe as we find it than suggesting that it is the perfect product of a perfect God.

Further, there is nothing to suggest that the intelligent designer of the universe would have to be single.  As Philo observed…

”a great number of men join in building a house or a ship, in rearing a city, in framing a commonwealth; why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world?” 

This would render the secondary conclusion of the classical teleological argument, that the intelligence behind the universe could be called God, redundant.   No Christian – and few members of other faiths – could accept that multiple Gods could have had a hand in creating the universe; to do so would place limits on the power of each, reducing the God’s to the status of spirits or demons. Philo admits that supposing the existence of multiple deities would be to “multiply causes unnecessarily” in a way that is philosophically unsound, and yet he argues that although it would be just as wrong to say that there must be one God as to say there must be multiple Gods.  There is no way that human beings can know one way or the other.  The secondary conclusion is not adequately supported by the premises and so the argument fails in its objective of being a demonstration of the existence of God.

Of course modern Intelligent Design arguments get around this difficulty by eliminating the secondary conclusion and leaving just the inference that God might be the intelligence that the argument has concluded to exist.  Scholars such as Michael Behe and William Dembski point out the inadequacy of Darwin’s Theory of evolution through natural selection as a complete explanation for the universe.

Michael Behe points to irreducible complexity in microbiological organisms, such as the flagellum of certain bacteria, suggesting that linear evolution cannot account for complex organisms in which all parts need to work together for any function to be performed.  Individual parts of irreducibly complex organisms are, Behe claims, without purpose unless all the other parts are present and correctly arranged.  How could things evolve all at once to be this way?  An intelligence is needed to explain these structures, some of which are the very building-blocks of life.  It may be that evolution explains some aspects of nature, but without hypothesising intelligent design scientists cannot explain all of nature[9].  Of course Behe’s argument is rejected by most mainstream scientists, who point out that parts of organisms can evolve out of existence as well as into existence.  It could well be that each part of an irreducibly complex organism had a purpose in relation to the organism as it was in a previous stage of evolution, but as the new purpose evolved the old one became redundant and other parts of the structure with no new purpose did not survive.  Most critics of Behe claim that he has either misunderstood the science and is making invalid claims to irreducible complexity or claim that he is too hasty in his conclusion that an intelligent designer hypothesis is required. If they are right, as I am persuaded that they are – the critics vastly outnumber and outrank his supporters – then Behe’s modern version of the teleological argument fails, even with its scientific examples and lack of secondary conclusion.

Like Behe, William Dembski proposes that an intelligent designer hypothesis is needed to account for the characteristics of natural organisms.  Dembski appeals to what he calls “specified complexity”, instances where incredibly complex structures occur where each part of the whole is finely tuned for its job.  The obvious example is DNA – each “letter” of a strand of DNA, ACGT, has a specific role and there are millions and millions of them in the most basic genome. As a statistician, Dembski calculates the probability of such specified complex structures arising by chance and concludes that where the probability surpasses what he calls the “universal probability bound” (10×1150) then it is incredible to suppose that it happened by chance rather than design[10].  Dembski has as many critics as Behe.  Again they claim that he has either misunderstood the science or jumped to his conclusion of intelligent design too hastily.  Specifically, Dembski starts with specified complex structures as they are today and assumes that they were always meant to be this way when he calculates probability, which ignores the possibility that they genuinely exist by chance and could very well not exist or exist differently.  Scientists are beginning to recognise that DNA contains a huge percentage of redundancy – code that was once relevant but which has been rendered redundant by new code which has been added as species evolve.  Certainly, cutting out a section of DNA will change the efficacy of the whole strand, but that is because redundant elements are woven into the fabric of the whole.  Take Brighton Pavilion as an example – its structure is highly complex and each bit is integral to the whole.  This is not as a result of design but because the building was remodelled through several different designs and the present building incorporates and relies on elements of older buildings.  The guttering runs inside the walls and now holds up the ceilings in some places.  Start taking things away – even things as small as layers of wallpaper or light-fittings – and the whole building starts to crumble.  As Richard Dawkins has observed, it is more reasonable to suggest that specified complex structures did arise naturally, over extended periods of time and as a result of environmental pressures, than to claim that they were created as they are my a mysterious “intelligence”[11].  Such a conclusion multiplies improbabilities and by the scientific and philosophical principle of Occam’s Razor, is illogical.  It follows that Dembski’s argument fails as well.

In conclusion it seems that the classical teleological argument fails to demonstrate the existence of God.  The versions proposed by Aquinas, Cleanthes and William Paley are undermined by their use of weak analogies, their propositions are questionable and the conclusions, both that an intelligence and that God exists, are not adequately supported by those propositions.  Most persuasively, the argument fails to explain how a recognisable God could create an imperfect universe or why the characteristics of the universe should not be imputed to demonstrate the existence of an imperfect God, or even a committee of Gods.  Yet, in the end, Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection remains the best reason for rejecting teleological arguments, whether in their classical or modern forms.  The failure of Intelligent Design arguments such as those proposed by Michael Behe and William Dembski shows that any attempt to argue qua purpose to God lacks credibility when evolution offers an elegant and demonstrable explanation of purposiveness that does not demand recourse to the supernatural.  Certainly, examples of structures which biology does not yet understand exist.  However absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence!  Science is by its nature a process and it is unreasonable for religious critics to demand that it present a complete explanation now or admit failure.  There is ample evidence that evolution continues to offer explanatory power and that it is making progress in explaining even the most irreducibly complex or specifically complex structures.  Nevertheless, the failure of classical arguments qua purpose and modern derivations of them does not obviate the possibility of arguing to God qua regularity.  In particular, the aesthetic argument presented by Richard Swinburne could survive the criticisms outlined here[12].  That a universe should exist and evolve in the way that it does is incredible and this sense of awe and wonder could be the basis for a successful abductive argument for some sort of a God, if not the God of Classical Theism.

Footnotes

[1] Summa Theologica: First Part, Question 2, Article 3

[2] Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) Part II

[3] Ibid.

[4] Natural Theology page 3.

[5] Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) Part II

[6] Ibid.

[7] In Memoriam, Canto 56

[8]   Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) Part V

[9] See “Darwin’s Black Box” (1994)

[10] In books such as “No Free Lunch” (2002)

[11] See the case he presents in episode 2 of his documentary “Religion: The root of all evil” (2002)

[12] The Existence of God (2004)

Critically evaluate Aquinas’ Fifth Way. [40]

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Aquinas’ Fifth Way represents a classic statement of the teleological argument qua purpose.  Like Aquinas’ first four ways (Summa Theologica 1, Question 2, Article 3) the argument is inductive and draws the conclusion that God exists a posteriori, following observations of characteristics of the natural world and specifically that all things seem to act for an end (Greek “telos”).  Also like Aquinas’ other ways, the fifth way cannot claim to prove God’s existence; as an inductive argument it is limited to concluding that God is the most probable explanation of the aspects of the universe named in the propositions.  Apart from that obvious limitation, Aquinas’ argument is beset by significant problems and, as this essay will demonstrate, fails to achieve its aim of being a good argument for God’s existence.

Aquinas’ fifth way can be expressed through the following syllogism

P1: natural bodies, which lack intelligence, act for an end

P2: whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence

C: Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end (and this being we call God)

The first proposition – that natural bodies which lack intelligence act for an end – could easily be disputed.  Might it not be that direction in natural bodies is more about how we see and understand them than about how they actually are?  Arguably, the human brain is hard-wired to see patterns and infer causation in the natural world.  Of course, without proposition one the whole argument will founder.

Even if this objection is dismissed as taking scepticism too far, proposition two – that whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end unless it be directed by some intelligent being – is problematic.  Take a banana.  Creationists often cite it as an example of “intelligent design” in the universe.  The banana is a great size, shape, sweetness and colour for human consumption (even its skin features a reliable indicator of ripeness) it seems well designed for the end of being a tasty snack.  Yet to say that ignores the fact that neither the colour, nor the shape, nor the sweetness nor the size of the banana has anything to do with a divine designer – modern bananas have been selectively bred by farmers to have these attributes from parent plants which evolved to appeal to other animals such as monkeys who would spread the seeds of the plant by consuming its fruit.  While we can infer the existence of an intelligence from the brilliance of the modern banana in suiting the average human palate, to suggest that that intelligence is divine is a big step too far.  Even setting aside the modern banana in favour of the original “wild banana”, the “intelligence” that designed it is more probably evolution by natural selection than any God.  It seems that the second proposition “whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence” is seriously flawed and on this grounds as well could be said to fail in its aim of being a good argument for God’s existence. 

Further, Aquinas proceeds to use the analogy of an arrow and an archer to illustrate his claim that all natural things act for an end and so must have been designed to do so by an intelligent being.  The analogy is far from perfect and suggests a certain circularity in Aquinas’ reasoning.  As Hume’s character Philo observes, the selection of an analogy for the universe is far from neutral.  Scholars (including Aquinas) assume their own world-view in selecting something to compare the universe with and so by saying “the universe is like an arrow” or “the universe is like a watch” commit the fallacy of begging the question. If I compare teleology in the universe with an arrow then the suggestion of a necessary divine archer seems reasonable, yet if I compared the universe with a rock rolling down a mountain, which seems just as sensible an analogy – elements of the universe go through cycles, grow increasingly complex and make progress after all – then the inference that there must be an intelligent designer behind the process seems less obvious.  Rocks can roll down mountains as a result of non-intelligent actions, whereas arrows don’t tend to hit their marks randomly.  The “ends” which Aquinas claims that non-intelligent things act for could well be accounted for by natural processes such as evolution through natural selection, so it seems unnecessary to conclude that an intelligent designer, let alone the Christian God, exists.

Finally, Aquinas’ claim about direction and efficiency in the universe is a general one.  There are many instances of natural things failing to fulfil their apparent end or indeed not having an apparent end.  If God is the “intelligent designer” of the universe then what do the obvious inefficiencies in nature suggest about His competence, and (as Charles Darwin and John Stuart Mill both observed) what does the existence of beings whose end is to torment and destroy other beings say about His goodness? As Darwin wrote…

“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.”

And as the Biologist JBS Haldane wrote…

“The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other, for the simple reason that there are nearly 300,000 species of beetle known, and perhaps more, as compared with somewhat less than 9,000 species of birds and a little over 10,000 species of mammals. Beetles are actually more numerous than the species of any other insect order. That kind of thing is characteristic of nature.” (“What is life?”)

As Hume’s character Philo concluded, the problems attendant on suggesting that God is the necessary designer of this universe, with all of its quirks and inefficiencies, are many.  Further, why one God?  Why not an apprentice God, a senile God… or one working as part of a committee? The final step in Aquinas’ argument, that of saying “this being we call God” is a giant leap and probably a leap too far.

In conclusion it seems that quite apart from the limitation of being an inductive argument, Aquinas’ fifth way fails to achieve its aim of being a good argument for God’s existence.  Aquinas’ first proposition can be questioned, his second seems to have no foundation in a post Darwin world, his analogy of the arrow and the archer is imperfect and so his conclusion that an intelligent designer-God must exist cannot be upheld. Nevertheless and despite its failure Aquinas’ argument retains value as an extremely clear statement of the teleological argument qua purpose, an argument which remains the most persuasive and which is probably the most widely cited reason for belief in God. Although the propositions fail to stand up to scientific scrutiny they seem reasonable, even undeniable to many people on an intuitive level.  On this basis modern scholars such as Alister McGrath and Richard Swinburne appeal to probability asking “which is more probable; that the apparent order and purpose nature is explained by chance and natural selection or that there is an intelligence shaping the process?”  They have more success in this limited endeavour than Aquinas had in seeking to advance a good inductive argument for God’s existence.

Further Reading

Aquinas’ Ways to God (New Advent)

Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

 

“Kantian ethics are too abstract to be helpful when it comes to sexual ethics.” Evaluate this statement. (40)

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Kant never married, there is no evidence that he was romantically involved with anybody and his ethical writings contain few direct references to sex. Because of these well-known biographical details, it is unreasonable to suppose that Kant would struggle when it comes to sexual ethics. Yet, as this essay will argue, his approach to ethics is far from being too abstract to be helpful when making decisions about sex.

Firstly, Kantian Ethics are of clear relevance to making decisions about sex because they concern how we choose to treat people. Kant argued that reason demands that we treat human beings, whether in the person of ourselves or another, always as an end and never as a means to an end. For Kant, human beings are “pathologically loving”, recognising that it is rational to treat other people as we would wish to be treated. This means that in any moral situation – and sex is most definitely a moral situation because it affects human wellbeing like little else – we must consider and protect the interests of all persons equally. This rules out using somebody for pleasure, whether through heterosexual or homosexual intercourse, and only allows sexual activity that is consensual and supportive of both parties’ long-term wellbeing. Marriage would be the obvious (though not necessarily the only) way to ensure properly informed and enthusiastic consent, including as regards possible children, as well as mutual commitment to the others’ wellbeing. Adultery would be ruled out by the impossibility of universalising breaking promises. Casual sex could be as unacceptable as rape, because it is probably underpinned by the same un-universalisable maxim. This means that Kantian Ethics would helpfully reinforce common norms of behaviour, supporting marriage and discouraging adultery, promiscuity and of course sexual abuse and violence. On the other hand, for Kant there is no essential moral difference between heterosexual and homosexual sex, meaning that Kantian Ethics could be more useful than Natural Law in the 21st Century.

Secondly, Kantian Ethics are far more helpful than is Utilitarianism when it comes to making decisions about sex. Act Utilitarianism demands that decisions are made situationally relative to the predicted consequences. Nevertheless, as even the utilitarian Peter Singer admits, it is often not possible to predict consequences accurately. Also, making an objective decision when affected by lust is impractical. As St Augustine rightly observed, lust makes us incapable of doing what we know we should do. It also makes us lie to ourselves to get what we want. For example, if somebody was making a utilitarian calculation about having a one-night-stand, they start by making the assumption that this is a one-night-stand (which might not be the case) and then attempt to calculate their own feelings and that of the other party during and after sex. Quite obviously, these calculations might be inaccurate. Can they know whether they, or the other party, has an STI or mental health condition? Can they know that no conception will occur? Even where extensive discussion has taken place, the facts may turn out to be other than was thought. Further, such detailed discussions are not always practical in the real world. It follows that Act Utilitarianism is not really very helpful when it comes to making decisions about sexual ethics, only encouraging to individuals in pursuing their selfish pleasure. Further, Rule Utilitarianism is little improvement over Act Utilitarianism in practice. Few Rule Utilitarians propose imposing absolute rules other than perhaps “do not murder,” so people are permitted to break such rules as exist when they don’t seem useful. When it comes to sex, it is all too easy to see one’s situation as exceptional, leading Rule Utilitarians to become Act Utilitarians when it comes to sex. The exception might be John Stuart Mill, who famously kept his relationship with the married Harriet Taylor platonic, even though she was separated from her husband and the world assumed her to be his mistress. Mill respected the institution of marriage on utilitarian grounds, placing the happiness of society ahead of his own, and Harriet’s, pleasure. Yet would his utilitarian decision have been the same today, with easy divorce and different sexual mores? Utilitarians have to make decisions relative to the situation as it is, including social attitudes and laws, and today neither the law nor social attitudes impinge so much on individual sexual ethics as was the case in the mid 19th Century. It follows that today Kantian Ethics offers a more helpful guide than Utilitarianism when it comes to sexual ethics, because it reminds people to consider every person as an end and to act on universal principles rather than to give in to lust.

Of course, Kantian Ethics has its weaknesses. Some Utilitarians will suggest that Kantian Ethics rules out consensual promiscuous behaviour, which has the potential to produce a great deal of pleasure. As an absolutist system Kantian Ethics imposes general rules which reduce legitimate opportunities for happiness which might be allowed by a more flexible consequentialist approach. In addition, arguably Kant’s concern for reason controlling the animal instincts and for the damaging effects of making selfish decisions even once might rule out using pornography, even that which is computer-generated. It might also rule out masturbation. Again, Utilitarians would criticise Kant for this, suggesting that his absolute rules have reduced net pleasure unnecessarily. Nevertheless, it is Kant’s difficulty with the institution of marriage that presents a bigger problem to the usefulness of his ethic today. As Christine Korsgaard has observed, there is a potential issue with marriage for Kant, both because of the potential of the whole institution for using women as a means to an end and because of what it actually consists in. If marriage is, as it has long been, an instrument for the legal subjugation of women then no Kantian could allow that a woman could freely AND rationally agree to it and, if the woman did not agree both freely AND rationally, no man could freely AND rationally agree to it either. It is not possible to universalise agreeing to a contract which has either been forced on or not been understood by the other party; to do so would surely use them as a means to an end? Further, could a Kantian choose to marry when marriage represents an unbreakable promise or contract in the words… “Immanuel, will you take Christine to be your wife? Will you love her, comfort her, honour and protect her, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?” The implication of this wording could be that each partner promises to put the interests of the other partner first, even ahead of their own interests. Could such a promise be made freely AND rationally – or would entering into such a promise bar one from having a good will, which requires that all persons are treated strictly equally and not preferred on any grounds of personal preference, relationship… or presumably legal pre-contract AKA marriage? Korsgaard suggests that these issues can be overcome in the 21st century because legal obstacles to marriage being between equal partners have been dissolved and because the wording of the marriage service need not be interpreted – or even spoken – in this way. As Marcia Baron suggested, marriage-partners need not agree to prefer each other morally and in fact as rational and free people would resist any idea that they should do so. Nevertheless, using the sort of extreme thought-experiment beloved of Kant in the Groundwork, imagine that a newlywed couple is caught in a hotel fire. The bride escapes out of the third-floor window, maybe abseiling to the ground using her cathedral-train, and has the choice of helping her husband to make a safe descent or leaving him hanging as smoke billows from their window to run to reception and raise the alarm for the other guests. Who would think that her promise to love and comfort him did not cover such situations or that she would be justified in abandoning him to fate, provided that she did her duty by unknown others? WD Ross, in many ways influenced by Kant, argued that people have a prima facie duty to family members – including husbands or wives – but like Kant offered little clear guidance on how to resolve clashing duties beyond suggesting (again like Kant) that rational intuition should be our guide. This is the biggest difficulty with applying Kantian Ethics to issues arising from sex – that clashing duties are common and that Kant is not particularly helpful when it comes to helping people to resolve them. Saying that negative duties always take precedence over positive ones is not convincing or useful when family-members are concerned. Would anybody in the real world allow their wife or baby to starve rather than steal a loaf of bread and still have any expectation of having their good will rewarded?

In conclusion, despite being abstract, Kantian Ethics are more helpful than alternatives such as Utilitarianism and Natural Law when it comes to sexual ethics. In particular, Kantian Ethics is useful in encouraging people to focus on treating people as ends and not as means to an end. However, there are still significant problems with Kantian Ethics and the guidance it offers, particularly when it comes to how to resolve clashing duties, and these difficulties are not reserved to sexual ethics, but beset the application of Kantian Ethics more generally.

Religious experience is a good pointer to the existence of God! Discuss (40)

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Religious experience, whether that is the general experience of living a religious life or specific, direct experiences of the divine, is very commonly cited as the basis for religious faith.  Nevertheless, William James and William Alston have both argued that although Religious Experiences are reasonably authoritative for the people who have them – and for those people may serve as more than a pointer to the existence of God – because of plausible non-religious explanations there can be no duty on other people to accept the authenticity of religious experiences or see them as pointers to anything supernatural. Richard Swinburne went further, noting that whether one accepts religious experiences as a good pointer to the existence of God will depend on one’s assessment of prior probability.  Responses to the claim “Religious experience is a good pointer to the existence of God!” depend to some extent on one’s own relationship with religious experience(s), whether one has had a direct experience or must rely on others’ reports, but depend mostly on one’s world-view.  Atheists and materialists are unlikely to accept the claim, even if they have had an experience that might otherwise be categorized as religious, whereas those who are open to the existence of God on other grounds are more likely to accept the claim, even on the strength of anecdote.

Direct religious experiences are notoriously difficult to define or categorise.  William James identified four marks that most experiences seem to have – transiency, a noetic quality, ineffability and passivity – and yet there are well-known experiences which do not have these marks.  Thomas Merton had relatively regular experiences over a long period.   Teresa of Avila’s experiences were sustained and seemingly the result of practices designed to provoke them.  Further the Religious canon is packed with descriptions of religious experience.  Other scholars have defined religious experiences in different ways.  Scholar of mysticism Rudolph Otto took a more general approach, saying only that authentic religious experiences are those of mysterium tremendum et fascinans.  In some ways Otto’s definition accords with Martin Buber’s description of religious experiences as I-thou encounters.  Walter Stace excluded classic visions and voices altogether and argued that genuine religious experiences are non-sensuous and mystical in character.  Richard Swinburne, on the other hand, listed five different types of religious experience in two categories, public and private, in an attempt to be inclusive. The difficulty in defining religious experiences is a seemingly insuperable obstacle to using them as the basis for an inductive argument for the existence of God.

Direct religious experiences are also open to alternative, non-religious explanations. Ludwig Feuerbach and Sigmund Freud both noted how religious belief tends towards wish-fulfilment.  Some religious experiences fit in most conveniently with the wants and needs of the person who has them and could be explained as creations of the subconscious mind. For example, Joan of Arc’s experiences fit in with the French nationalistic mood of the time and provided Joan with a credibility that she could never otherwise have had.  Might she have invented the experiences – or have interpreted them creatively – for her own (side’s) political advantage?  The Emperor Constantine’s vision before the battle of Milvian Bridge and the visions leading to the discovery of the True Cross on the First Crusade could be seen in similar terms. Alternatively, other religious experiences might be explained in physiological terms.  It is more common for those experiencing extreme physical stress or hormonal change to claim religious experiences – could the physiological changes associated with puberty or the suffering involved in a life-threatening illness be causing out-of-body sensations that are later interpreted as religious?  Julian of Norwich experienced visions while close to death, St Paul seems to have been an epileptic subject to grand-mal seizures and many other visionaries and mystics have exhibited physiological symptoms which might account for their altered state.  Of course it is difficult to disprove religious experiences in these ways – not least because an account of HOW the experience might have happened does not rule out God as the reason WHY it happened.  Nevertheless, the existence of non-religious explanations for religious experiences does undermine their status as a good pointer to the existence of God, both individually and otherwise.

Although Swinburne incorporated an argument from Religious Experience into his cumulative case for God, set out in “The Existence of God” (1991), he accepted that unlike accepting the natural observations that other inductive arguments start with, accepting religious experiences as even a pointer to the existence of God depends on prior probability.  People who already accept the possibility of God’s existence will accept that religious experiences are a feature of the world which require explanation while those with an atheistic world-view will reject religious experiences as delusions or at least claim that psychology and/or physiology explain away the phenomenon without any need to suggest a supernatural cause. It is fair to say that religious people, or at least those who are open-minded, will be more likely to accept that Religious experience is a good pointer to the existence of God than those who are committed to an atheist or materialist world-view and this suggests that there will always be disagreement on whether Religious Experiences constitute a good pointer to the existence of God that is little to do with the experiences themselves or what causes them.

Swinburne went on to argue that it is reasonable to accept reports of religious experiences – defined very broadly so as to include both public and private experiences – and to take them as pointers to the existence of God because of the principles of credulity and testimony.  In everyday life we believe what we see or experience ourselves and believe other people unless we have a good reason not to.  Why should these principles not apply to religious experiences?  Given the large number of people who claim to have had experiences that might be classed as religious experiences – around 1 in 3 people according to Alister Hardy Centre research – they need to be explained.  What reasonable grounds are there for dismissing either the occurrence of these experiences or the explanation proffered by those who have had them when we have no clear reason to doubt?  Nevertheless, Swinburne’s principles do little to advance his argument beyond prior probability.  Those with an atheistic or materialist world view are likely to respond to Swinburne by arguing that the very fact that somebody claims to have had a religious experience is evidence of their irrationality and good reason to be suspicious of their testimony. As Carl Sagan said “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” – by their nature religious experiences are out of the ordinary and demand more rather than less evidence both to support their authenticity and their interpretation.

In conclusion, the claim “Religious experiences are good pointers to the existence of God” will only be accepted by those who are open to the existence of God on other grounds and is unlikely to persuade non-religious people of God’s existence. As Anthony Flew wrote in God and Philosophy (1966), responses to religious experiences… ‘seems to depend on the interests, background and expectations of those who have them rather than on anything separate and autonomous…” Take AJ Ayer’s conversion experience.  Even the medically documented experience of a committed atheist and expert Philosopher is explained away in physiological and psychological terms by those who see it as impossible. Ayer eventually denied his own experiences, attributing them to the effects of cerebral anoxia or shock, rather than change his prior assessment of probability.  In “The Blind Watchmaker” Richard Dawkins wrote that if he witnessed a marble statue waving its hand at him he would prefer to check himself into the nearest psychiatric hospital than accept that he had witnessed a miracle. What better demonstration can there be of the effects of prior probability on the likelihood of people accepting religious experiences as a good pointer to the existence of God?

Further Reading

Richard Gale on Swinburne’s Argument from Religious Experience